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Archive for February, 2011

Some of our readers are curious to know if there any secrets about translating poetry. On this subject I am pleased to defer to Paul Schmidt in the introduction to his brilliant versions in English of Rimbaud’s poems in French:

“I was to master his poetry, to grasp his thought – whose record his poems were, that I knew – make it mine, to write his poems myself, as myself, in my own voice, in my own language. “Je’est un autre,” he writes. “I is somebody else,” indeed, in all his poems. So this is my Rimbaud, though I’m not Rimbaud, and he is not me. We are both somebody else.”

For my part, I’d just like to add that to interpret poetry – a more relevant verb than to translate- it helps being a poet.

The night is wet with the heaviness of too much life, of too much noise, of much too much pain : I can see it in the face of my father, flushed in the night light – still slightly ruddy from the late afternoon walk. We sit not 2 feet from each other and talk only with our eyes, or crude hand gestures, as what little he hears is distorted by “a metallic sound.”

I am warm, more like uncomfortably hot, but he wears the same blue sweater from years ago – like the proud uniform of the bloodless. He smiles from his chair adorned with stacks of pillows to coddle his ailing limbs: a proud smile that announces he still has all his own teeth. I give him the thumbs up, and he nods – but we both know it’s not true – far from it…

I can hear the drip of the bathroom sink, like the chorus of time it announces the same shared secret – that yes, he’s once again left the sink running – singing a song of revenge: free flowing at all expense – like the years spent – laughing openly at the ridiculous pretense: life is worth living at any price.

He struggles to hear my measured words – my pleasantries, my lies – I know he knows, and I that there are things worse than death. That there is no way to skirt the path long drawn by luck – choices, or blatant karma. He draws a deep night air breath, as if to pull the silky taper of a moon beam to his heart – as if to drink the night song vibrant with the drumming wings of cicadas- as if to meld into the thick and heavy night air which by morning will have vaporized to just another day….. just another long day of waiting and fearing the sounds of nothing, the vastness of open space the brightness of absolute and finite light where colors fade to pure white and I sit witness, offering little solace, but simply recognizing the complete and utter absurdity of this mirror we hold as tight as gold to our mind’s eye –

I want to whisper in his deaf ear: as loudly as my throat will howl – “Run – run- run for your life –Run and free your heart – like the monarchs swarming over the ocean to some God forsaken town in Mexico, like the warblers migrating south – like the dolphins chasing tuna, and countless idiots chasing their dreams – run and let the southern winds lift you past the Gulf stream into the cold blasts of angry Arctic winds – into the clouds that bash and blast frigid snow on the unsuspecting – laugh yourself into frozen mountains – high, past the horizon, to the golden roofs of Himalayan temples,and there in thinnest of airs under the smile of Buddha himself – be free once and for all.

I give him the thumbs up again, but this time he doesn’t smile, just nods, as if he has heard me…..

I have been posting poems on this blog as steadily as possible. Some are older poems, and some more recent. You may notice a wide range in length of these poems, and in subject…but they are all heart felt musings and a part of my growth as a person and poet. Spring has suddenly arrived here in north west Florida, and it makes me long for the mountains of Montana – the cool brisk air and the time I have there to truly write. I will continue to post poems from my Montana wanderings for the next few days. I also hope to have some more recent poems written in the last few months up on the blog soon – and some of my dad’s own poetry in Spanish. Please keep checking for new posts, enjoying and giving us some feedback.

Here he is again – the gray wolf at the top of the hill. As the sun breaks over the ridge behind Quake Lake, I feel the dew from his night wanderings against the nape of my neck: it smells of sweet sage and aspen, I turn eyes closed to hear the racing of his huge heart like the crashing of deep torrential waters, bearing the names of all his best kill: the painted antelope, the swift whitetail, and bravest of the last to stand – the timid hare, holding tight to the echo of thin breath…

My back to the sun, now his gaze golden brazen burns a flame on my brow – I glow with the crimson mark of death : La petit morte – the silence in the torrent the pause in the breath – the spiral toward nowhere, the fall, the birth and re birth….

A gust from the north brings with it a long sheath of a cloud: it unravels like a huge curtain wrapping the road, the bench, and the still timid sun in slick grayness – in nothingness. In an instant he is gone.

Tonight, on this fall equinox: this most balanced of days: when light is dark and dark is light, under this harvest and richest of moons, It all becomes one: intangible and limitless, boundless open and free as the gold in those eyes – it is then, I taste his desire.

Looking out over the green
gray
winter waves
I see a long progression
of years:
like the sea foam,
they disperse
into the huge scope
of churning waters,
expansive
and all inclusive:
melding into
the vast horizon
where they fall,
counted,
wasted,
graced
a full 60….

Long ago,
a young poet
ended a verse with:
“I have wasted my life.”
At the time,
I thought it was dark
and clever.
But,
I have relished
my life,
seeing how others
would not,
could not.
Like the royal palm
leaning
in this winter
sea wind ,
its brittle fronds
rustling,
I stand
face to the water
and sing
to the gift of life:
all the grit
and grace
pulled
year by year
from my heart
falls
into the space
between thought
and realization;
it tiptoes
cleverly
around my so called
conscious mind:
which dry
like the fronds,
has no color –
hollow:
an empty shell
of regrets
misgivings
judgments….
but in its
very center
lies the feel
of spring
and
hope.

No,
I tell myself
out loud,
I have not wasted my life.
I have gray
in my once raven
black
to prove it,
and what’s more
I wear it like an emblem
proud –
this mundane badge
of struggle
and desire
to feel the best
and worse
this awkward passage
has to offer:
all the messy muck
of life,
the brightest
darkest –
every variation
of shade
in the gleam
of the blinding
burning
vibrant
radiance
we are gifted….

I whisper out loud
as if the sea
might carry
my words
way past this day,
this place
this century
this realm
this now
this very moment :
“I have not wasted my life,
but
soon
it will
have wasted me.”